Air Pollution

BEIJING (Reuters) - With its parks, centuries-old palaces, history and culture, Beijing should be one of the more pleasant capitals of the world. Instead, it's considered among the worst to live in because of chronic air pollution. Lung cancer rates are rising among the 20 million residents of China's capital, health officials say. For many multinational companies, Beijing is considered a hardship posting and, despite the extra allowances that classification brings, some executives...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - You think your nose likes flowers? Well, certainly not as much as the tobacco hornworn moth. In fact, its life depends on it. These moths, whose olfactory abilities are as good as a bloodhound's and vastly better than a human's, can fly up to 80 miles (130 km) a night searching for their favorite flowers such as the Sacred Datura. The nectar of these fragrant white, trumpet-shaped flowers that bloom only once at night is an important food source for...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - For people with existing heart problems, exposure to high levels of air pollution can trigger the irregular heartbeats that may lead to a stroke or heart attack, according to a new study. Past research has linked air pollution to ventricular fibrillation, electrical confusion in the lower chambers of the heart which can cause sudden death. The new study also finds an association with atrial fibrillation (AF), erratic quivering in the heart's...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will boost funding to regions that do well in reining in air pollution and punish laggards, the cabinet has decided, as Beijing pushes local governments to step up the war on smog. The fight on crippling pollution that prematurely ends hundreds of thousands of lives annually has risen to near the top of the national agenda, but is still ignored by some local governments that remain focused only on growing their economies. Beijing now...

BEIJING, Jan 8 (Reuters) - China has set new targets for its provinces to reduce air pollution by 5 to 25 percent, state media said late on Tuesday, underscoring the government's concern about a source of public anger. China regularly issues directives to try to tackle air pollution in major cities, but these have had limited effect. Former health minister Chen Zhu said air pollution in the country causes premature deaths of 350,000 to 500,000 people yearly, state...

GENEVA (Reuters) - An effort by the World Health Organization to measure pollution in cities around the world has found New Delhi admits to having the dirtiest air, while Beijing's measurements, like its skies, are far from clear. The study of 1,600 cities found air pollution had worsened since a smaller survey in 2011, especially in poorer countries, putting city-dwellers at higher risk of cancer, stroke and heart disease. Air pollution killed about 7 million...

By John Thompson, Director of Clean Air Programs, Illinois Environmental Council | September 6, 1998

In defending her company's air pollution (Voice, Aug. 31), Commonwealth Edison's Mary O'Toole doesn't mention that ComEd is Illinois' largest emitter of nitrogen oxides. In 1997, ComEd's smokestacks emitted as much nitrogen oxide as 6.3 million cars, or roughly five times the number of cars registered in Chicago. That's a 14 percent increase above the company's previous year's pollution. A loophole in federal law enables ComEd to pollute so much. The company's old, coal-fired power plants don't have to meet...

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Beijing man is seeking to divorce his wife after she took their son to a tropical island province to escape the capital's notorious smog, saying the long-distance relationship had destroyed their marriage, state media said on Thursday. The man, identified only by his family name of Wang, married his wife in 2008 and had a son two years later, the Beijing Times reported, in a story widely picked up by other Chinese media outlets online, including Xinhua...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court handed President Barack Obama a victory on Tuesday by upholding a federal environmental regulation requiring some states to limit pollution that contributes to unhealthy air in neighboring states. By a 6-2 vote, the court said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency acted reasonably in requiring 28 states to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which can lead to soot and smog. Writing for...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who were exposed to air pollution during pregnancy tended to give birth to slightly lighter babies, in a new study from New York City. A series of studies has suggested air pollution may be harmful during pregnancy, but the issue remains unresolved. "We had an opportunity to use a unique data resource in New York City that was designed to estimate exposure throughout the city, which allowed us to improve on past studies, as well as...

BEIJING (Reuters) - About a third of the air pollution in China's smog-hit capital comes from outside the city, official media reported on Wednesday, citing a pollution watchdog. Chen Tian, chief of the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, said that about 28-36 percent of hazardous airborne particles known as PM2.5 came from surrounding provinces like Hebei, home to seven of China's 10 most polluted cities in 2013, according to official data. The...

HONG KONG (Reuters) - The worst pollution in two years smothered Hong Kong for a second day on Thursday, prompting warnings to the old and sick to stay indoors and obscuring one of the world's most famous views. Pollution readings were "very high" in business and shopping districts such as Central, Western, Causeway Bay and Mongkok, air monitoring stations showed, surpassed only once in March 2010 when a sandstorm in northern China covered Hong Kong in dust. "Bad air is...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China may revive 2008 Beijing Olympics-style air pollution controls when it holds a meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in the often smog-shrouded capital in November, state media said on Thursday. Officials are mulling traffic curbs based on license plate numbers to cut emissions and the closure of plants and construction sites during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting, which draws many heads of state from the group's 21 member...

LONDON (Reuters) - Air pollution killed about 7 million people in 2012, making it the world's single biggest environmental health risk, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. The toll, a doubling of previous estimates, means one in eight of all global deaths in 2012 was linked to polluted air and shows how reducing pollution inside and outside of people's homes could save millions of lives in future, the United Nations health agency said. Air pollution...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's smog is making it harder for foreign firms to convince top executives to work in the country, the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing said on Wednesday, offering some of the strongest evidence yet on how pollution is hurting recruitment. Some 48 percent of the 365 foreign companies that replied to the chamber's annual survey, which covers businesses in China's northern cities, said concerns over air quality were turning senior...

PARIS (Reuters) - Air pollution in Paris has hit health-threatening levels over 80 percent higher than in London and Berlin as a sunny spell reaches western Europe, prompting the city to curb road speeds and offer free public transport. Charges were also waived for the city's pioneering cycle and electric car-sharing schemes this week as a visible haze hung over the streets of the French capital. European Environment Agency (EEA) figures for Thursday showed there was 147...